The awards recognize the life science organizations which are at the forefront of leveraging information technology to develop innovative health solutions. In 2006, we created this program to encourage our customers and partners to push the envelope and find strategic uses of new technologies to better collaborate, securely and seamlessly share data with a broad network of partners and ultimately speed up time to market.

Let’s take a deeper dive into how life sciences organizations can enter:

WHO: Pharmaceutical, biotech and medical device companies, and academic, public and private sector life sciences organizations are invited to participate. If you are using the latest Microsoft solutions to reduce complexity, lower operational costs, and speed products or services to market faster, we want to hear from you.

WHY: The Microsoft Life Sciences Innovations Awards program is your opportunity to show the medical community, consumers and patients how your organization is creatively using technology to improve healthcare and enhance people's quality of life. By demonstrating quantifiable results, winners show how Microsoft technology can be implemented to revolutionize the industry, providing a road map for other companies that want to advance their own organizations’ goals. Winners will be eligible to participate in promotional and marketing activities with Microsoft, such as a press release, webcast or case study, and will receive a winner logo for use on their marketing materials and Website.

WHEN: The deadline for submissions is 5:00 p.m. PT on May 9, 2011. An independent panel of industry experts will select the three most innovative solutions, and winners will be announced on June 21, 2011 at the DrugInformation Association Annual Conference.

Last year’s winners offer some inspiring examples. Merck and its partnerProton Mediadeveloped custom virtual-world meeting technology to improve employee collaboration, as well as learning and training. The pilot created the pharmaceutical industry’s first virtual scientific poster session and demonstrated how life sciences companies can combine Microsoft’s technology with an enterprise virtual collaboration environment like ProtoSphere to extend their Microsoft platform and accelerate decision making.

Another winning entry last year came from Pfizer. By combining Microsoft Office SharePointServer and Microsoft Office OneNote, Pfizer created shared electronic project notebooks that enable teams to work in a rich collaborative environment, resulting in significant time savings, improved decision-making and increased team cohesion. This solution also won the Pfizer team the Royal Society of Chemistry’s 2010 Teamwork in Innovation award.

These are just a few examples. Now it’s your turn: Submit your application and tell us how your organization is creatively employing Microsoft solutions to realize significant business and information technology benefits.